Friday, October 25, 2013

Window on Eurasia: Sochi Countdown – 15 Weeks to the Olympiad in the North Caucasus

Note:This is my 35th special Window on
Eurasia about the meaning and impact of the planned Olympiad on the nations in
the surrounding region.These WOEs,
which will appear each Friday over the coming year, will not aim at being
comprehensive but rather will consist of a series bullet points about such
developments.I would like to invite
anyone with special knowledge or information about this subject to send me
references to the materials involved.My
email address is paul.goble@gmail.comAllow me to express my thanks to all those
who already have. Paul Goble

Moscow’s Massive
Use of Force May Result in Terror-Free Olympiad But Cause More Violence Later,
ICG Expert Says.
By its heavy use of military force across the North Caucasus, Yekaterina
Sokryanskaya, a specialist on the North Caucasus at the International Crisis
Group, says, Moscow have ensured that the Olympiad itself will be “quiet” and
that there will notbe any terrorist
incidents in the immediate facility.But that achievement, she adds, almost certainly will be followed by an
upsurge in violence in the region after the Games end because Russia’s approach
has exacerbated the situation there (kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/232245/).

Moscow
Increasing Pressure on Olympic Contractors to Complete Work.Despite frequent claims that everything is
almost ready for the Olympiad, Moscow officials are stepping up the pressure on
Olympic contractors to finish what they have started, something that an
Austrian paper is adding to local “nervousness” and adding to the Olympic
city’s problems. “Die Presse” says that officials are working hard to ensure
security but have not been able to distract attention from turbulence in the
area and widespread corruption in the Russian Federation (diepresse.com/home/wirtschaft/international/1466569/Sotschi_Im-Staube-ihres-Angesichts?from=suche.intern.portal).

European
Football Body Wants Russian Team Punished for ‘Racist Behavior’ of Its
Fans.UEFA has called for CSKA Moscow
to be disciplined “for the racist behavior of [the team’s]fans.” The association took that step after
Russian fans made racist remarks about Mancheteer City captain Yaya Toure, who
is from Cote d’Ivoire, during a match the Russian side lost 2-1.Toure condemned the fans and the referee for
failing to seek to stop the abuse (en.rsport.ru/football/20131024/696331909.html).

… But Russian
Officials Deny What Photographs Show … Dmitry Chernyshenko, president of
Russia’s Olympic Organizing Committee, denied the reports. He said that “what
the media wrote is not true. No one sustained burns, there was no outburst of
flame, and the alleged ’13-year-old girl’ is an adult employee of the Sochi-2014
committee’s law service.” He added that “the flame was too strong, so it was
put out and rekindled in the right and proper manner” (voiceofrussia.com/news/2013_10_22/Allegations-of-Olympic-torch-burn-suffered-by-girl-not-confirmed-2645/)/

… Sparking
Demands by Russian Politicians for Investigation … In the face of
this latest failure of the Olympic torches to stay lit and work as intended,Michael Starshinov, a senior member of
the People’s Front movement headed by President Vladimir Putin, said that “the
assurances of the organizers that it is an ordinary situation when the flame is
not lit are unconvincing. Any normal person would have several questions. Why
were 16,000 Olympic torches made? How much does each torch cost? Is this price
reasonable? And finally, why do they work badly?” (slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/10/09/russian_politicians_call_for_a_criminal_investigation_into_why_its_olympic.html).

… And Leading to
Admission that Russia’s Torches Have Problems. Although he
denied that the Kostroma incident happened as the picture showed, Roman Osin, a
press officer for the Olympic torch operation, said that “we admit that the
torches have definite problems.” There have been two incidents in which the
torch has “exploded,” and they are being investigated so that the problem can
be corrected (gazeta.ru/sport/news/2013/10/22/n_3271545.shtml).

Moscow Sends Russia’s
Olympic Torch to North Pole … Reflecting President Vladimir Putin’s expansive
claims about Russian control of the Arctic, Moscow has sent its Olympic torch
to the North Pole."In spite of everything the flame burned
excellently," organizing committee head Dmitry Chernyshenko said on
Twitter. "The weather's warm, just -15 [degrees]." The torch was
carried to the pole from Murmansk by a nuclear-powered icebreaker (en.rsport.ru/olympics/20131020/695213814.html
and vesti.ru/doc.html?id=1144117).

… But Faces Special
Problems with Lack of Roads Along Torch Route. Organizers plan for the Olympic
torch to pass through all 83 federal subjects of the Russian Federation on a
course said to be 65,000 kilometers long.But because of a shortage of roads, they will have the torch carried not
only by runners, cars and train but also by horse-drawn troikas and other
traditional vehicles. Some observers say that it is a good thing that the
country has a lot of Zippo lighters to ensure that the torch shows a flame when
it is supposed to (versia.ru/articles/2013/oct/07/missiya_ognya and sobesednik.ru/node/108759).

Russian
Supreme Court Upholds Kozak on Disposing Waste in Akhshtyr Crater.Despite a protest by Yabloko, Ecological
Watch on the North Caucasus, and Sochi’s own Law and Order movement in Moscow,
the Russian Supreme Court has rejected an appeal against the decision of Deputy
Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak to allow contractors to dump trash in the Akhshtyr
crater near Sochi. Environmentalists pointed out that the nature of the terrain
there means that this action destroys one of the beauty spots of the region and
directly threatens the safety of drinking water for the residents of the
Olympic city (kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/231917/).

Sochi Mayor Says District Heads Must Get Trash Problem Under
Control.Mayor Anatoly Pakhomov who has been much criticized for failing to
defend his city against the depradations of Olympic contractors has now
directed the heads of the city’s districts to deal with the mounting piles of
construction waste throughout the city. In addition to esthetic issues, the
trash poses a risk to public health because rains carry heavy metals and other
poisons from these heaps into the city’s water supply (sochi-24.ru/politika/glavy-rajonov-sochi-otvetyat-za-poryadok.20131024.69717.html).

Many Sochi
Residents Won’t Get Water They Were Promised.Because Olympic construction required the replacement of seven
kilometers of pipeline and because the pipes began to be installed only earlier
this summer and not before many facilities were built, residents in the center
of Sochi have not had hot water for “almost two months” and are unlikely to see
it by the end of November as officials had promised.This shortcoming is in addition to daily
power outages and gas disruptions and underscores that preparations for the
Games are not nearly as far advanced as Moscow says. Many residents are not
getting cold water either and have to rely on water trucks for their needs (sochi-24.ru/obshestvo/dva-mesyaca-v-centre-sochi-net-goryachej-vody.20131024.69725.html andkavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/231961/).

Moscow Official
Concedes Sochi Far from Ideal for Travel…
Nikolay Asaul, deputy transportation minister, says that Sochi is a tightly
restricted space, surrounded by the sea and mountains and without a complete
road network.As a result, he advised
that visitors should not use private cars during the Olympiad and said that
Moscow’s imposition of strict limits on movement was fully justified (kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/232244/).

Chechen in
Abkhazia Says Western Media Misinformed about Violence in North Caucasus.Eli-Solta Makhmatkhanov, a leader of the
Chechen diaspora in Abkhazia, says that “the western mass media are
disseminating false reports about the supposed threats to security at the
upcoming Olympic Games in Sochi.He said
that the region is far more secure than many make out (regnum.ru/news/polit/1721162.html).

Sochi Residents,
Tourists Among Those Arrested as Illegal Immigrants. The drive to
round up and expel illegal gastarbeiters in and around Sochi is so broad that
it has led to the arrest of legal residents and tourists, forcing local rights
groups to take up their cause as well. Accordinng to one Russian tourist who
was arrested in the sweep, the police squads ignored the documents he and
others offered and took them to the station because of their “’ethnic’” looks.
“Wewere just in Sochi for three days of vacation; how can they treat tourists
like that?”He added, “I’ll nevergotoSochi
again, even to the Olympics. The Olympics can go to hell” (sports.yahoo.com/news/olympic-city-sochi-under-fire-anti-migrant-drive-145047018--oly.html).

Special Security
Measures Introduced at All Mayor Facilities in Sochi. Olympic
organizers say that special security arrangements have been put in place at all
venues and support facilities as well as hospitals and cultural facilities.
These include surveillance cameras, metal detectors, and regular police patrols
(kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/232113/).

Border Security
Zone Lifted as Other Security Measures Imposed.The
FSB has lifted the border security regime that had governed Sochi and its regions
up to now as officials have put in place new and tougher security arrangements in
the city. The change allows a more differentiated approach with tighter
security in some places than in others and with “forbidden zones” like the area
along the Abkhaz border (kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/232027/).

Olympic Rail Security
Center Established at Adler Station.A
special center to conduct security screenings of those arriving in Sochi by
train has been set up in Adler station.The inspectors are supplemented by 492 video cameras in the station
itself, and they will be backed up police at an additional 96 checkpoints,
officials say. They add that Sochi’s security system has “already shown its
effectiveness” by identifying and allowing for the confiscation of more than
800 guns and other dangerous items since the first of the year (itar-tasskuban.ru/news/article?type=city2014&i=49104).

Sochi Police
Arrest More Drug Traffickers.Faced with what appears to be an upsurge in the sale of a variety of
illegal drugs, Sochi police have arrested a group of eight people involved with
selling a drug known as “spice.” The leader of the group had been a legitimate
businessman, police say, but he decided he could make more money with little
risk by supplying illegal drugs to the population there (blogsochi.ru/content/gruppa-sbytchikov-spaisa-likvidirovana).

Chechen in
Abkhazia Says Western Media Misinformed about Violence in North Caucasus.Eli-Solta Makhmatkhanov, a leader of the
Chechen diaspora in Abkhazia, says that “the western mass media are
disseminating false reports about the supposed threats to security at the
upcoming Olympic Games in Sochi.He said
that the region is far more secure than many make out (regnum.ru/news/polit/1721162.html).

Independent
Circassian Activists Say Pro-Sochi Comments Don’t Reflect Nation’s Attitudes. Independent Circassian activists in the Middle
East, Europe and the United States as well as those in the North Caucasus say
that a tour of Circassian “leaders” organized by Moscow and resulting in calls for
the Sochi Games to go forward does not reflect the views of the Adygey nation.
They say that the calls were completely scripted by Moscow and designed to
detract attention from the genocide the Russians committed against their nation
in 1864 in Sochi and to weaken the Circassian national movement (facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151988260150701&set=a.10151988432625701.1073741828.335082120700&type=1&theater
and natpress.ru/index.php?newsid=8451).

Sochi Residents
Launch Anti-Pakhomov Web Page.Sochi residents angry at Mayor Anatoly Pakhomov for what they see as his
total disregard of their interests and involvement in widespread corruption
have launched a webpage “Typical Pakhomov” (vk.com/typical_pahomic) to call
attention to his actions and inactions and the gap between what he promises and
what actually happens (blogsochi.ru/content/tipichnyi-pakhomov).

Olympiad and
Paralympiad Will Be Invalid Friendly, Leader of Russia’s Deaf Says.Despite the fact that the Sochi authorities
pushed the local blind society out of its longtime headquarters and that
pictures on blogsochi.ru regularly show that Olympic facilities do not meet the
standards for the handicapped that Moscow had pledged to observe, Stanislav
Ivanovm vice president of the All-Russian Society of the Deaf, says that Sochi
will be “a comfortable barrier-free milieu” for the handicapped (itar-tasskuban.ru/news/article?type=city2014&i=49166).

Multi-Child
Families Demonstrate to Demand Land Alotments.More than 50 members of families with large
numbers of children staged a demonstration in Sochi to demand that the
authorities give them the land parcels that Russian law says they are entitled
to but that local officials have not distributed.Participants said that Mayor Anatoly Pakhomov
and his regimehad provided “insufficient support” to large families in other ways
as well (kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/232074/).

Russia’s Laws
‘Treat Homosexuals as Less than Human,’ Commentator Says.Gregory Koch, a columnist for
Dailycampus.com, says that “it is true that Russia’s laws and practices treat
homosexuals as less than human; it is true that this needs to change; [and]
other nations should put pressure on Russia to change these laws.” But a
boycott of the Sochi Games is “not the way to do so.” If gay athletes like New
Zealand’s speed skater Blake Skjellerup take part and win, “then some Russian
swill realiz that perfectly productive and normal human beings can be
gay.”That will be “a much more powerful
message” than not taking part (dailycampus.com/commentary/let-them-play-don-t-boycott-sochi-olympics-1.3098784#.UmguHRBcUUM).

Calls for Olympic
Results to Be in Russian are ‘Pseudo-Patriotic,’ Moscow Sports Writer Says. Nikolay Yaremenko, former chief editor of
Moscow’s Sports Radio, says that the calls by some Russians that all results at
Sochi between Russian teams and others be listed in Russian and Cyrillic rather
than as now in English and Latin script abbreviation like “Rus-Pol” for
“Russia-Poland” are a shameful example of “pseudo-patriotism” and should be
denounced rather than encouraged (echo.msk.ru/blog/iaremenko/1182576-echo/).

More Sochi
Investors Demand that Moscow Bail Them Out.Private investors say they need the injection of more money from the
Russian government if they are to make a profit and finish construction by
December 25, the new completion date Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak has
set, one almost 11 months later than Moscow originally pledged to the IOC.The investors say that they deserve more help
because of the high cost of consturction in complexmountainous conditions, the
underdeveloped engineering and transportation infrastructure, the lack of fixed
specifications for many projects, inflation, and problems with labor supplies
and construction materials.It remains
unclear whether and how Moscow will do so, especially given the Russian
government’s current budgetary constraints (expert.ru/2013/10/22/v-otvete-za-olimpiadu/?n=66995).

Krasnodar Kray
Recruits Workers to Help Finish Landscaping in Sochi.The government of Krasnodar has called for 30
people to join with their own shovels and other tools a work group that will
help finish landscaping around the Olympic sites in Sochi, yet another
indication that Moscow is putting pressure on regional officials to finish and
that construction is not quite as far along as the Russian government insists (yuga.ru/news/311066/).

Sochi Now Features
‘Concrete Rivers and Dirty Shorelines,’ Residents Say.Sochi residents say that contractors building
Olympic facilities have been so careless that the rivers through the city are
filled with concrete dust and the shorelines of these rivers are increasingly
contaminated as a result. They have complained to prosecutors who have so far
refused to confirm what the residents have provided pictures of (sochi-24.ru/obshestvo/-betonnye-reki-gryaznye-berega-.20131022.69579.html).

IMF Says End of
Sochi Construction Will Hurt Economies of Moldova, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.Because those three countries are the source
of so many gastarbeiters in Sochi and because these workers are sending home a
major portion of their wages, these countries will sufer economically once
construction ends and the monetary transfers cease.According to the fund, there have been as
many as 100,000 workers on Sochi construction sites over the past year, with as
many as 70 percent being from beyond the borders of the Russian Federation (ria.ru/economy/20131022/971753521.html).

Sochi Residents
Stockpiling Food and Water Because of Planned Travel Restrictions.Sochi residents who have “become accustomed
not to trust the authorities” on anything are currently stockpiling food and
water because they believe that Moscow’s plan to divide the city into two large
security districts and 15 smaller ones with checkpoints at their borders will
make it impossible for them to do any shopping during the Games.Officials say that such concerns are
misplaced and that Sochi residents will be able to move about although they
concede that the streets will be full and public transportation fully loaded (ng.ru/regions/2013-10-18/1_sochi.htmland sochi-24.ru/obshestvo/predstavlena-informaciya-o-vydache-propuskov-na-transport.20131018.69466.html).

Russian
Nationalist Calls for Moscow to Counter Foreign Criticism of Anti-Gay Law. Aleksey Pankin, a nationalist historian, says
that the Russian government has failed to respond adequately to Western
criticism of the law imposing penalties for “homosexual propaganda” directed
toward young people.He calls the
Western campaign a form of information homo-colonialism” and says that if
Russia launches a major public diplomacy effort, it will find that it has many
sympathetic supporters of the law in Western countries (stoletie.ru/politika/informacionnyj_gomokolonializm_268.htm).

Russian Central Bank
Sells Three Kilo Gold Coin to Commemorate Sochi.Moscow has minted a three kilogram gold coin
in honor of the 2014 Sochi Olympics, a coin that was sold to an anonymous buyer
from the Russian Far East for 232,000 US dollars.The Central Bank will issue a total of 21
special coins made of silver, 13 of gold and three of non-ferrous metals for a
total minting of some 50 million commemorative coins in all (en.ria.ru/sochi2014/20131018/184217794/Russian-Buys-66-Lbs-Sochi-Olympics-Gold-Coin-for-232000.html).

Sochi Olympic
Site Gets First Snow – A Dusting.The mountains where the Sochi Olympics will take place got their first
snowfall of the 2013/14 winter, an event that has attracted attention only
because it was so little and because Russian officials are so concerned about
having enough snow next February that they are stockpiling snow in special refrigeration
units (latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-sochi-snow-20131019,0,907237.story#axzz2iJWeFkbi).

George Takei
Says IOC Failing to Uphold Olympic Charter. George Takei, an openly gay actor who has
sought to have the Olympics moved from Sochi because of Russia’s anti-gay law
but who opposes a boycott because of its consequences for competitors, says
that “the International Olympic Committeeis spinelss. They need to have some
backbone because they are charge with upholding the Olympic creed, and smething
should be done with the membership of the IOC” (ontopmag.com/article.aspx?id=16732&MediaType=1&Category=22).

Olympic
Facilities Look Finished If You Don’t Go Inside, Sochi Residents Say. Sochi
residents say that many firms which claim to have finished their Olympic
projects have gotten away with it because few of those inspecting what they do
go insie. Anyone who does, the residents say, will see instantly that the
sites, including the Media Center that was supposed to be operational as of
August 20th,are far from
finished, and they provide videos showing just how much more work needs to be
done (realty.newsru.com/article/18oct2013/sochi_nedostroy and
blogsochi.ru/content/sochi-za-4-mesyatsa-do-olimpiady).

Openly Gay NBC
Correspondent Heads to Moscow.Thomas Roberts, an openly gay NBC correspondent, says he will co-host
his network’s coverag of the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow and thus test
Russia’s anti-gay laws.He said he
agreed to go because showing up is “a huge, visible opportunity for LGBT
people,” adding that “courage is contagious … We must be visible, we must show
up, and, as Harvey Milk said,we must ‘give them hope’” (queerty.com/thomas-roberts-is-off-to-russia-despite-strict-antigay-laws-20131018/).